The essential episodes of Midsomer Murders
Watch these 15 in order and you've got Midsomer Murders — each pick states its reason.
- 01
The secretary of the Midsomer Worthy's writers' circle is found brutally murdered after objecting to a visit from a best-selling novelist.
- 02
The residents of Midsomer Mallow fear for their chances in The Perfect Village competition when Peter Drinkwater, a local thief and womaniser, is brutally killed with a pitchfork.
- 03
The brutal murder of a village postman leads Barnaby to a hotbed of adultery within the remote hamlet of Goodman's Land. As more murders rock the tiny hamlet, can community WPC Jay Nash help untangle the web of sexual liaisons to find the killer?
- 04
The village of Midsomer Parva is dominated by the imposing and exclusive Devington School. So when the college's Pudding Club sets off a murderous chain of events, ranks begin to close against Barnaby and Troy. Without access to inside information, catching a killer who is obsessed by loyalty, finding the school's hidden secrets puts the two detectives to the test.
- 05
The apparent suicide of a local ne'er-do-well arouses suspicions due to the complexity of his death. As DCI Barnaby investigates, he is reunited with an old friend, Dr. Jane Moore, who insists the man wouldn't have committed suicide even though he had a history of depression.
- 06
When the community of Midsomer Parva revives the Straw Woman bonfire festival, tragedy strikes when the local curate Alex Dakin, trapped in a giant straw effigy, is burnt alive.
- 07
When retired music teacher Arthur Leggott is battered to death with a torch in his home, DCI Barnaby and Sgt. Scott investigate a tangled web of family feuds and long lost love affairs to discover the truth.
- 08
Despite being the original arresting officer, DCI Barnaby begins to question the presumed guilt of a Midsomer Malham woman who is currently standing trial for the murder of her best friend.
- 09
Mischievous trickster, Rex Masters, finally gets his comeuppance when his body is found floating below the weir in Midsomer Deverell. As DCI Barnaby and DS Jones investigate, the extent of Rex's double life starts to emerge when three family friends and a long-lost niece each produce wills claiming his fortune. Does Rex's collection of erotic photographs from the 1960s hold the key to the tangled relationships and feuds blighting the Masters family?
- 10
DCI Barnaby becomes an unwelcome guest at a society wedding after the maid of honour is found skewered to a wardrobe in one of the hotel bedrooms. However, with his own daughter Cully about to get married, will Barnaby be able to solve the grisly murder in time to walk her down the aisle?
- 11
The village schoolteacher insists there is an intruder visiting her house at night, but why can no intruder ever be found? And why have two dead bodies been found in her garden?
- 12
When gifted piano student Zoe Stock witnesses a woman jump from a bridge and disappear underwater in the grounds of her prestigious music school, DCI Barnaby and DS Jones start investigating. As they discover unsavoury connections to the past that could still prove lethal, Barnaby is struck by the similarities to an almost identical case at the same spot years earlier.
- 13
When a young woman is dressed like a bride and drowned in a bath, it triggers a spate of ghoulish wedding-themed murders in Great Worthy. The case takes DCI Barnaby and DS Jones to a donkey sanctuary, a heritage steam railway, and a pub run by an ex-copper and a former brothel madam. With a serial killer still at large, could history be repeating itself?
- 14
Carver Valley's comic festival is in full swing when the village is shocked by the murder of a former supermodel. With a scathing comic shaming several villagers as the only lead, DCI Barnaby and DS Winter are left trying to separate fact from fiction.
- 15
There is a murderer on the loose at an aristocratic family's medicinal beekeeping business. Barnaby attempts yoga again, and stretching his mind to solve this case.
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He's smart, he's good looking, and he's got a great sense of humor.
